Chinese plate mills are happy with exports

SteelOrbis Shanghai Chinese plate market continued the strong upward trend during last week, with brisk commercial activities in entire China. The supply in domestic market has decreased continuously because of strong exports, and even some specifications were unavailable at all. Due to a possible decrease in export tax rebate, steel mills are spending much efforts on completing exports before the execution of such a policy. The shortage of supply in domestic markets is mainly due to this approach. On the import and export side, the medium plate quotation of Jinan Steel to Turkey is at around $590-600/mt FOB. The company is mainly selling products to its regular customers only, because of short supply. Some steel mills have also given offers to South Korea at $570/mt CFR, and a steel mill in northeastern China even offered products at $620/mt CFR S. Korea. The rapid price increase drove prices to a close level to the highest price of the previous year. A recent quotation of Chinese medium plate to Italy is at Euro 550/mt CIF level. Product availability of Chinese mills is low; therefore, export prices of plates may increase further.